Joint working to deliver better care

Report from SCIE, London Health and Care Integration Collaborative and PPL event held on 5 October 2015.

SCIE Report 75

Published: January 2016

We need to keep going back to what we are trying to achieve – asking what people’s needs are, what they want, and who are the people we are talking about?

Sarah Pickup, Deputy Chief Executive, Local Government Association

On 5 October 2015, the London Health and Care Integration Collaborative, SCIE and PPL came together to deliver an event for London on the theme of joint working to deliver better care. The event was attended by around 70 people from across London with an interest in or involved in delivering integrated care.

The aims of the event were to enable participants to:

Learn about practical steps they can take to develop joint working and ensure it works effectively, e.g. developing an effective communications and engagement strategy, leading co-ordinated, co-located teams, and co-producing change with people who use services

Hear from experts on the integration of health, social care and wider services

Share learning and practice about what works from across London and network with others involved in leading joint working for integrated care.

Taking the form of a plenary session, followed by in depth breakout sessions, the event drew extensively on the learning from comprehensive work by SCIE and PPL on integration, including two How To Guides produced on leadership and joint working, as well as from examples from within London.

Key messages

Prevention, early intervention and integrated care are all linked and it is not helpful to view them as independent of each other.

It is important that leaders are able to look beyond their own organisation to the needs of the system overall.

Having the right conversations about risk sharing and the ability to take risks is extremely important.

We need to see communities and people as assets with contributions to make and to move away from a focus on meeting needs to a focus on realising potential.

People need to know that they have the power to shape their own care.

Getting staff buy in and valuing staff contributions and ideas is critical.